Meet Susan Marie Frontczak | Storyteller and Living History Scholar

We had the good fortune of connecting with Susan Marie Frontczak and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Susan Marie, what role has risk played in your life or career?
When I took a year’s leave of absence from Hewlett Packard Company to pursue full time Storytelling, many co-workers and friends said to me, “You’re so brave!” That sounded very odd to me. I didn’t feel particularly courageous. When I asked them, “Why do you say I am brave?” I got one of two answers: Either, “You’ll never make enough money to live on.” Or, “You like telling stories as a hobby. It won’t be fun anymore when you are doing it all the time.” That is, from their point of view, I was headed to certain failure. OK, one would have to be brave to choose to leap into inevitable doom. I realized I looked toward the year very differently. I didn’t have a clue whether or not I would make enough money to live on or whether I would enjoy doing this work full time. But being of a scientific background, the way you find the answer to a question is to do an experiment. From my point of view the leave of absence was an experiment. Finding out the answers to those two questions meant success, whatever the answers were. That put my psyche in an entirely different place from someone who needed to feel brave enough to face a formidable, potentially unassailable foe. It could have turned out differently. However I found out that I could make enough money to live on and I thoroughly enjoyed doing the work full time. I feel fulfilled by my artistic work in a way that would never have been available in industry as an engineer or manager.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I chose the name Storysmith® because, like a blacksmith shaping iron, I heat up, hammer, and craft a story with strong forces before letting it cool into a tale worth sharing.

My Storysmith® motto is “Give me a place to stand, and I will take you somewhere else.” The kind of stories I tell – or teach you to tell – depends on where you want to go. My performance and teaching work delves into the overlapping worlds of living history, literature, writing, storytelling, and public speaking.

Deeply researched Living History programs are the center of my repertoire. To date, I represent scientist Marie Curie, author Mary Shelley, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, dancer Irene Castle, humanitarian Clara Barton, and humorist Erma Bombeck. These one-woman shows melt, stretch, and reform the boundaries between theatre, storytelling, and public speaking with the goal of actively engaging the audience in exploring who we want to be as human beings. They are presented with no imaginary “fourth wall” between the historical figure and the audience. Rather, the audience travels back in time to hear from the historical personage. Many of these presentations are in the Chautauqua format consisting of a monologue in character, followed first by a Q&A with the historical figure, and then a Q&A with me out of character as the scholar. These ladies have acquainted me with over 800 audiences in 43 of the United States and nine countries abroad since 2001.

I would never have predicted that I would find my way to this unusual calling from a career in Engineering. I began telling stories as a hobby. I didn’t know that there were people who called themselves Storytellers, let alone some of those who earned a living at it. Then people and organizations started paying me for my hobby. The big leap was leaving 14 years in Engineering to take up Storytelling full time in 1994. (Though I do think the organizational, self-discipline, and computer skills learned in industry have paid off in running my own business.) The other major phase of evolution came in 1999 when I began to develop my first Living History, Manya – The Living History of Marie Curie.

I began Manya because I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to create a work that would make a bigger contribution than I felt I could achieve through my storytelling alone. This began as a proposal for a Storytelling Conference: Marie Curie would tell her story. (I did not yet know about the Chautauqua format.) Three months into development, and still five months before the presentation, I called up the conference organizers and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do it.” Why? “This is growing into something bigger than I imagined. I don’t even know what it is yet. I can’t possibly be ready by April.” After much negotiation we agreed I would present a “work in progress.” It was very well received, but it was a mere hint of the two-act one-woman show that took me another full year to develop. I then also carved out the shorter-format Chautauqua program, as there are many settings (schools, conferences, and official Chautauqua events) that cannot accommodate a two-hour program. Much to my surprise, through these two programs Marie Curie has taken me to 34 states, Canada, and across Europe.

Over time, five more ladies have made their way into my repertoire, either by invitation or through my own initiative. For each of these, while the historical character stays in her own time period, the monologue is constructed to invite the listener to draw the dotted lines to issues of today. Audience members not only become intrigued by the history but also are stimulated to plumb the humanities questions inherent in the historical figure’s experience and thereby find reasons to look inside themselves.

Perhaps the most ambitious project along the way has been moving into a new medium for Living History. Filming Humanity Needs Dreamers, a Visit with Marie Curie (http://www.humanityneedsdreamers.org) in collaboration with producer Jen Myronuk required figuring out how to eliminate the “fourth wall” for a digital presentation. It is easier to say what it is not than what it is. It is not a documentary, it is not a movie, it is not a video capture of a live performance. It is a new use of film. As in the live performance, the viewing audience travels back in time to meet Marie Curie in Paris in 1915. Our goal is to reach an audience that is a couple orders of magnitude larger than I can ever reach with live performance, especially youth who either may consider science as a career or who realize that basic science literacy will be essential to managing the world they are to inherit as adults.

In addition to performing, I am keen to pass along ideas and encouragement to both youth and adults who are developing their own Living History programs, so that future generations might carry this art form forward. I have been coaching youth in “Young Chautauqua” since 2004 and authored the Young Chautauqua handbooks for Colorado Humanities. I am on the faculty for the Chautauqua Training Institute, a nation-wide program hosted by Humanities North Dakota that is training a dozen new adult Chautauqua scholars from across the country.

It is an immense responsibility to represent a fellow human’s life on stage. I call upon myself (and those I teach) foremost to represent the Person’s point of view. This means I let go of my personal political or philosophical agenda. Second, I approach the Person’s life with reverence, revealing the Person’s best as a reminder of what we might aspire to and the Person’s flaws as a window into what makes us all human. And third, I undertake this journey with humility, that I might learn about myself while getting to know this fellow human being.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love showing friends around Boulder and beyond. With over 100 miles of hiking trails to choose from in Boulder City and County, there are glorious natural wonders to explore at any level of physical exertion, from a daybreak bird walk at Sawhill Ponds to a vigorous day-long hike up South Arapahoe Peak. If my visitor is inclined, spring through fall we might bicycle a loop around town on the multi-use paths; in winter we’ll hit some cross-country ski trails along the Peak to Peak highway.

Special events arrive at different times of year. The Conference on World Affairs on the CU Campus is not to be missed if you are here in April. It’s a treat to catch the Farmer’s Market on 13th Street on Wednesdays or Saturdays from spring through fall and the Boulder Shakespeare Festival which runs throughout the summer. In early August we’ll head up to Greeley for High Plains Chautauqua, or a little later in the month try out the Boulder Fringe Festival. Throughout the school year there are cool films at the International Film series on campus. My favorites are the Oscar Nominated Shorts in three categories: Live Action, Documentary, and Animated films.

Any time of year we’ll visit Boulder’s sister city by dining at the Dushanbe Tea House. There’s always something mind-bending next door at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA). A visit to Boulder isn’t complete without a stroll down the Pearl Street mall. A favorite side excursion is to the carousel in Nederland with its heartfelt history. And we’ll check out the dances at the Avalon Ballroom – Contra, Waltz, Swing, Scandinavian, and more. In one visit you can’t possibly fit it all in. You’ll have to come back!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
In the 1980s I attended Pinewoods Dance Camp because I always felt so alive dancing to the Scottish and English tunes. I had gotten in the habit of sharing a story at camp each year. In 1987 I told “The Mountain Whippoorwill” by Stephen Vincent Benet at a late-night ceilidh. It is the tale of a humble fiddler at a fiddle contest. I didn’t analyze it at the time, but I realize now it is an artist’s coming-of-age story. All I knew was that the story spoke to my soul. But I didn’t know it would move the group of 30 or so adults gathered that evening more than I could have imagined, many of them to tears. Sensing the power in that story was almost scary. That night fiddler Alasdair Frasier (https://www.alasdairfraser.com/) took me on a walk and, referring to my storytelling, said, “You can’t ignore this. You’ve got to do something with this.” I don’t know whether he knows what strength he gave me that night.

Over the years there have been countless others! Don Cardwell who invited me to imagine when I might take the leap, with no strings attached to the question. Jen Myronuk, the producer of Humanity Needs Dreamers: A Visit with Marie Curie who had the vision for transmuting the live Manya program to the medium of film.  Judd Johnson and Norman Hughes and Bob Melville who helped me with laboratory equipment for my Marie Curie Living History. So many people who have offered feedback to my works-in-progress. Hundreds of unrecognized and un-acclaimed individuals who have written the grants and done all the legwork to bring me to their community or school or college. And my mother, who came ‘round from initial apprehension at my change in career direction to being my biggest fan.

Website: https://www.storysmith.org

Image Credits
Irene Castle image – Peter Wayne Photography; Clara Barton image – Marianne Martin Real Life Portraits